What’s interesting is the breakdown of who voted for who. When I saw that Justin Amash got precisely 1 vote for Speaker, I figured he probably voted for himself (since his hero Ron Paul isn’t coming back and he seems vain enough to figure that he’s the only one that can be trusted with the Speaker’s gavel).
Not so, however. The RLC sent with an email this morning with the apparent breakdown:
Rep. Justin Amash, MI, voted for Rep. Raul Labrador, R-ID.
Rep. Jim Bridenstine, OK, voted for Rep. Eric Cantor, R-VA.
Rep. Paul Broun, GA, voted for former Rep. Allen West, R-FL.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, TX, voted for former Rep. Allen West, R-FL.
Rep. Tim Huelskamp, KS, voted for Rep. Jim Jordan, R-OH.
Rep. Walter Jones, NC, voted for former GAO Comptroller David Walker.
Rep. Thomas Massie, KY, voted for Rep. Justin Amash, R-MI.
Rep. Steve Pearce, NM, voted for Rep. Eric Cantor, R-VA.
Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fl, voted for Rep. Eric Cantor, R-VA.
Rep. Steve Stockman, TX, voted present.
Rep. Raul Labrador, ID, remained silent when called.
Rep. Mick Mulvaney, SC, no vote.
One vote remains unaccounted for.
I would have probably joined Broun and Gohmert in voting for West. It was merely a protest vote though... although technically a non-member can be Speaker (and the Dems go ballistic if West stayed in the chamber as Speaker, whether or not he had voting power makes little difference since the Speaker almost never votes), there was no way it was gonna happen. There hasn’t been a non-member elected as House Speaker in the entire history of this country.
Cantor got more protest votes than West, and while he’s a viable choice for Speaker, I don’t think it would be much of an improvement. A bunch of freepers USED to love Cantor for some inexplicable reason and constantly tout him for higher office, now the thinking seems to be what I said all along... he’s just another timid establishment Republicans.
Biggest “wtf” moment goes to Walter Jones Jr. for voting for David Walker. He’s a maverick alright, though certainly not a conservative. Proof that being anti-establishment doesn’t necessarily make you a good guy since he votes with the Dems far more than most Republicans. I wish they could successfully primary that loose cannon.
The GOP leadership can retaliate against anyone who defects against the Speaker, so it’s not surprising there were only 11 Republicans who didn’t support Boehner. The ones who didn’t vote for him were taking a gamble. The rest are spineless twerps.
I’m not surprised that Massie voted for Amash—they’r both Paultards. Well, slightly surprised, since I thought both would vote for Ron Paul.
Stockman voted Present, which is the ultimate symbolic vote, since it would not have prevented Boehner from being elected Speaker (vacancies, absences and members voting Present don’t form part of the denominator, so all Stockman did was reduce the number of votes Boehner needed from 218 to 217).
“... although technically a non-member can be Speaker ....”
That interpretation assumes that when the Framers placed the words “the House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker” in Article I of the U.S. Constitution they were not basing the speakership on the Speaker of the House of Commons of the British Parliament, which most definitely *did* need to be filled by a Member of the House of Commons. The reason that they didn’t write “the House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker *from among their members*” was because it was deemed to be self-evident, since the Speaker is the leader of the House and the leader must come from within the group—had the Framers intended to allow the House to elect a Speaker that was not a member of the body, such a clear departure from parliamentary precedent would have been specifically noted, and they likely would have selected a title other than Speaker. The one instance in the U.S. Constitution where the presiding officer would not be a member of the body he presided was when the Vice President is made, ex officio, the President of the Senate, but he was specifically designated as such in Article I, and the fact that the VP is not a member of the Senate was probably the reason why they didn’t baptize the presiding officer of the Senate as “the Speaker of the Senate.”
No one believes that the Chief Justice of the United States can be someone other than a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and, until a few years ago (when a couple of Republicans upset at Newt Gingrich voted for retired Republicans for Speaker) no one other than a sitting Representative had even received a vote for Speaker. (So, BillyBoy, when you said “there hasn’t been a non-member elected as House Speaker in the entire history of this country,” it was quite an understatement.) I think the theory of the non-member of the House serving as Speaker is an interesting exercise in constitutional analysis, as is the theory that the Governor of New York could be in the line of succession to the presidency (a governor is, after all, an “officer”), but having a non-member serve as Speaker ultimately would be a distortion of the Framers’ original intent.
Gohmert could have run for Speaker,
Heck, a similar battle will be waged over the debt limit very soon, if he thinks its very important he could of stepped up to the plate and taken a risk of running for Speaker.
After all he demanded that Bohner get the blame for taxes going up and the stock market tanking by blocking those bills, doing that would have been way worse for Bohner than just running for Speaker.
If he won he would be able to block any crappy Senate bill on the debt limit that will probably pass, and be the national focal point for the consequences. He would be hero here.
But like the others its too easy just to vote against bills that pass and for bills that don't. No risk there.
I saw some Dems plotting on their channel today about how they will be taking out the remaining NE Republicans to help take back the House, Speaker Pelosi 2015.